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418: Certain existing permitted uses may continue
or “ Some activities that were allowed before can keep going for now, even if the new rules say they're not okay, until the local council makes new plans or the old permission runs out. ”

You could also call this:

“Special rules for waste discharge into water that was allowed before the new law started”

If you have permission to release waste into water, and this permission was given under old rules, you can keep doing it for a while. This is true even if the water now has new rules about what can go into it. You can keep releasing waste in the same way and amount as before, but only until you apply for a new permit. You need to apply for this new permit within two years of when the new rules started. If you don’t apply in time, you can’t keep releasing waste anymore. This rule is important and applies even if other parts of the law seem to say something different.

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Next up: 420: Designations and requirements continued

or “This law explains how old plans for special projects continue under the new rules, making sure they're still valid and looked after properly.”

Part 15 Transitional provisions
Existing uses

419Certain discharges affected by water classifications

  1. Where—

  2. provisions of a final water classification of the kind referred to in section 368(2)(b) are deemed to constitute the provisions of a regional plan under section 368(1) or a regional coastal plan under section 370(1); and
    1. immediately before the date of commencement of this Act, in respect of any receiving water to which those provisions apply, any discharge of waste within the meaning of the Water and Soil Conservation Act 1967 was authorised to be continued under section 26K(2) of that Act
      1. any person so authorised shall, subject to subsection (2), continue to be so authorised for the same period, to the same extent, and subject to the same conditions, pending that person's application for a resource consent to discharge such waste into the receiving water and the determination of any appeals in respect of that application.

      2. Any person authorised under subsection (1) to continue any discharge of waste shall cease to be so authorised upon the second anniversary of the date of commencement of this Act unless by that anniversary that person has made an application under this Act to the relevant regional council for a resource consent to discharge such waste.

      3. This section shall apply notwithstanding anything to the contrary in this Act.